


Morning Routine

by Duchesse



Category: Howl's Moving Castle - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Gender Neutral, Humor, M/M, Reader Insert, Romance, basically howl and sophie setting the mood for the entire day like always, reader interactive
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-27
Updated: 2019-06-27
Packaged: 2020-05-20 17:12:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19381150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Duchesse/pseuds/Duchesse
Summary: You learned to the rise from slumber when the first shout echoed from downstairs.[Howl Pendragon/You].





	Morning Routine

**Author's Note:**

> ppl ask me to write howl stuff quite a bit idk why

The cataclysm that was your life often began just as dawn broke across the sky, all with its hues of pink and orange spearing through the shroud of night. You knew it not by the caress of light seeping through the slithers of space between your curtains, nor by crowing roosters in their tragically optimistic song. In fact, by comparison to what you typically endured, a rooster would by far be your preference.

At that point, you had become attuned to stirring right around that time as it was; the fog of sleep still sat in your mind like an anvil, inciting your head back to your pillow for just a bit longer. You always resisted because it would never amount to anything anyway. So there you sat, legs hanging like lead over the edge, shoulders and back rolled forward in such a way you felt the pull of gravity teetering you towards the floor.

You eyes were the last thing to adjust, keeping them closed for the most part until you found the bravery in you to put forth your feet and stand. Most day, however, you waited for the castle to erupt.

And that it did.

Although notoriously not an early-riser, Howl had quite gotten into the habit recently for reasons you didn’t bother to explore, aside from petty teatimes with Sophie. His gait was unmistakable as he pounced down the stairs, attempting all the lightness of an antelope in his movements, but only ended up like a clumsy giraffe stumbling down them. You thought you caught a waft of his new cologne or another from the gap beneath your door.

From there, you listened with an increasingly steady heart; anticipating the next things to come. Below your feet you heard a mishmash of voices; all their owners very distinct, though their words were dulled by the splintery floorboards supporting your feet, and probably the fact your ears were still deafened to most sounds right now.

Sophie was likely asking what everyone wanted for breakfast, encouraging Michael to fetch you out of bed; to jab you a couple times in the ribs with a broom handle if you were being particularly fussy. He gave some affirmative, you were sure, listening to the lethargic groan of staircase.

Next came Howl’s voice, damn bold, bright, and too fucking chipper for this early in the morning. He was speaking with rapid succession, you could only assume it was a complaint about burnt bacon, or insisting he cook up his own eggs. It wasn’t unfathomable the dolt made mention of some travesty Sophie committed yesterday as well.

“Why you- first thing in the morning! This is what you let fly out of your flap?! I should’ve known, you’re no good. Eat your bacon! Shush!” Sophie’s screech was clear and loud, jolting you upright from the remnants of your sleep. “The eggs are fine, you buffoon. There’s nothin- no, there’s nothing wrong with them!”

“I shouldn’t have to make breakfast every morning!” Howl rejoined, being the only thing you could discern through the floorboards before an awful, cacophonous contest of bellows erupted from downstairs.

You rose to your feet then, swaying back on your heels for just a second as you propelled yourself towards the door, throwing it open against the wall just as Michael’s knuckles had come forward on it to knock.

“Oh, mornin’, figured you were awake.” Michael said, rubbing away the sleep in his eyes. “I think Calcifer overcooked the bacon, but you know Howl.”

“Mmmya,” came the grunt from your throat as you sidled past him in the doorway, onward towards the bathroom, missing the kid’s utterly apathetic, distant stare after you.

Even with the thick door shut and the ferocious hiss of water gushing into the bathtub, you still heard traces of their argument downstairs. You tried to pay little heed to it as you sat along the rim of the rub, a foot hiked across your knee as your fingertips glided in a dance across the rippling surface, testing the temperature by plunging your hand to the wrist, smacking your palm on the bottom of the tub.

At this stage in the morning, you didn’t have the capacity to understand and express emotion let alone meditate whatever their spit was today.

As the mirrors dotted throughout the bathroom began to fog, steam swirling around you in white puffs that touched your skin the same as a warm breath; familiar yet always new enough, you shucked off your night clothes and stepped in carefully. You had ran the temperature too high, but your shared frugal nature with Sophie made it but impossible to drain the tub- or worse, use even more water.

The heat nipped at your toes, searing the pads of your feet as you bounced from one to the other. It crept higher to your shins, to your thighs and groin, hips, waist, and finally the rest of you as you slowly submerged your body beneath the fragrant waters. The eucalyptus and lemongrass floated inside your nostrils as you breathed; both a classic, yet harmonious meld that brimmed your lungs and parted from your lips.

“Ah! I knew it! You were the one who stitched a patch into my suit! Michael, look at this hideousness! I can’t wear this!” Howl lamented, his sheer agony managed to seep through the crevices in the floorboards into the bathroom. You weren’t sure how.

There was a pause, presumably of reluctance before Michael offered his thoughts. “Why not? It looks fine to me.”

“Michael!” Howl exclaimed, his voice jumping a to a higher pitch, clearly affronted. “My own apprentice says such things. Where did I fail? Was it when, out of the kindness of my soul- my very being, Michael, when I let Sophie start sleeping on the cot?”

“Can’t you pipe down?” came Sophie’s exasperated reply. “Some people are trying to enjoy their morning. Now, stop being a baby and go put your suit away.”

Of course, the fighting did not end, and you resigned to drowning out their voices to incoherent shouts for the sake of enjoying your bath. Even still, your eyes floated about the bathroom lazily; noting the many absolute useless trinkets that decorated the walls, to the bottles of dyes and cosmetics rammed haphazardly atop the sink, stacked thoughtlessly. It was much the same on the adjacent rim of the bathtub touching the wall; Howl’s collection of mysterious dyes, shampoos, scrubs, and washes were all in unmarked glass bottles. You thought some even glowed.

You could barely bring yourself to look above the containers at the white walls stained like an artist’s palette after a time of mixing, dabbing, adding, and stippling. It was mostly curiosity that led you to reaching a hand above water, attempting to dig a nail under a splotch of vibrant red, grimacing once you realized it was not coming up.

“God, he just needs to suck it up and take some bleach from his sister.” You groused, scraping dutifully at the stain with some hope any amount of red would chip away.

You had anticipated for the fighting downstairs to eventually migrate to the top floor. It was less an attempt of escape on Howl’s part and more of his desire to complain to you until the evening at this new wickedness of Sophie’s.

Predictably, feet pounded up the staircase, rattling the oddities on the walls and jingling others as the hallway exploded with all the ferocity of a thundering stampede. You heard first the noise stop at your bedroom door, Howl’s voice echoing your name urgently before tromping onward.

The eucalyptus was getting deep into your muscles at that point, you didn’t even consider the fact that the tips of Howl’s boot-clad toes peeked beneath the bathroom door. For some reason, you expected a smidge of courtesy and rapping knuckles against the wood door, not it swinging open hard enough to strike the wall behind it and bounce off it.

Howl surged forward into the bathroom, swiping the steamy air with his suit as he thrust it out at arm’s length. “Look! Look at what what that sad old woman did! Can you see it? This patch is hideous, and right in the elbow! I’m beside myself, you need to stop her-”

“What in the living hell, Howl!” You shouted, unsure of what parts of you were appropriate to cover, so you simply ripped the shower curtain over until all except your head was hidden. “I don’t care! Get out!”

Howl let out a horrified gasp, clutching the suit jacket closer to his chest. “You don’t care? What world am I living in that my sweetest, my lover does not share in my pain? We swore ourselves to share agony and hardships and–”

“Oh my god, Howell! I’m trying to take a bath! Scram!” The first bottle flung was in plastic, an orange dye to be precise. Your hands felt along the cluttered wall for anything else light. “Git! Git! Git!”

Howl ducked around your onslaught, nearing closer to the door as he went. “That awful woman! Look at how she’s rubbed off on you! I won’t forgive her.”

“Holy hell, Howell! _Go_!”


End file.
